Apple might be developing tools to migrate data to Android

Apple broke the barrier in 2015 by releasing a couple apps onto Google’s Play Store. One of those apps was Apple Music, and the other was a utility to move data over to an iPhone for anyone switching ecosystems. Now it looks like the company is under pressure to release software to move things the other way, for those users that are leaving Apple’s platform for Google’s Android. (Sorry, Windows Phone users.)

Apple has privately agreed to develop these tools for moving over things like music, photos, and contacts onto an Android device. This pressure comes from mobile operators that are highly dependent on Apple’s iPhone because of its dominance in the high-end of the market, who seem to think that the difficulty of moving things out of iTunes and Apple’s platform are hurting Android sales. I doubt you’d find many Android OEMs that disagree.

There’s no timeline on when these tools will actually become available, although simple transfer apps shouldn’t take years of R&D time. Still, it’s hard to imagine that Apple wouldn’t drag its feet when developing something that actively hurts its position in the market.